A Writing Blog Written by the Mind of Kelvin Cech

Your online content marketing campaign rocketship is off the ground; congratulations! As a content manager, you’ve put in a ton of work: from exploring your content to searching for a kick-ass marketing team, you’ve been the fuel that’s driving your unstoppable content marketing strategy.

So pop the champagne and kick your feet up!

…After you ask yourself the following 4 questions. Don’t worry, these questions are easy, they’re fun, and most importantly: your marketing campaign isn’t making a dime until you’ve answered them.

1. Are You Sharing Your Content?

Online content marketing campaigns have an alias: inbound marketing. According to Hubspot, inbound marketing is the art of getting found on the internet – so how will potential clientspeople find you?

Sharing your content online is a statement that tells the world you believe in your work and you’re proud to spread the word. Your content marketing campaign is a demonstration of expertise – giving away a section of your knowledge shows the public what they’re missing and encourages them to buy something from you.

That being said, simply hitting publish on your WordPress blog won’t cut it these days – you need to submit your marketing campaign to online communities that might appreciate your work.

LinkedIn: Good for connecting with people you know who may or may not be interested in your work.Stumbleupon: Good for finding resources similar to your own, although I usually just waste the afternoon looking at pictures.Blend: New one for me, submission site for developers, content creators and tech nerds.Inbound: Submission site for all things web – always delivers traffic to the Function blog.Bizsugar: My favorite submission site for sure, lots of small business interaction, comments on my posts and link traffic. Bizsugar is run by real people who are learning and developing their content – just like you.

Anyone have any other submission sites that they use?

2. Is Your Content Shareable?

Sharing content with social media communities such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is one thing, but you’re not going to get any traction if your content isn’t shareable. People aren’t going to spread your marketing campaign’s message around the interwebs if it’s boring, unhelpful, offensive, or lacks the expertise to back up your claims.

Shareable content connects you with people in your industry while guaranteeing you’ll come across other content marketing campaigns online that will teach you more about operating your own business. If you found something online that would help your clients, would you share it? Damn right you would. So ask yourself, are people going to share your work?

Hint: they will if it helps their clients. See how it works? Like a never-ending carousel of awesome!

3. Does Your Marketing Campaign Encourage Action?

If you’ve hired a professional copywriter like myself or Ruth ZIve (who knows a thing or two about writing compelling CTA’s (calls to action)), then chances are you know about the value of encouraging action in your readers. Don’t be bashful – tell people what action you want them to take and exactly how they can take it.

Make sure your content tells people exactly:

How to contact you

How to find more information

How to purchase your services

Why they’ll benefit from your services

If your marketing plan engages your audience with compelling benefits and helpful products, then encouraging that audience to take action will be a piece of cake, right?

Right. This takes us straight to our next point.

4. Does Your Content Make Life Easy for Your Audience?

A common thread in the Content Manager’s Guide to a Killer Online Content Marketing Plan is that your audience can’t read your mind – they don’t know the first thing about your business. Your audience will be made up of busy people who will greatly appreciate a content plan that makes life easy for them.

Remember, just because you fully understand your services doesn’t mean your marketing campaign’s audience will. Make it easy for them to digest, and you’re a lot more likely to see your audience take action.

Deliver To Your Niche & Leave Room for the Bandwagon

When you set out to publish an online content marketing plan, you’re delivering your business expertise to a targeted niche in the hope that they’ll spend money on your services. Obviously it would be nice if everyone in the world bought products from you, but that’s not going to happen, so take care of an audience that’s more likely to buy.

Operating a business should be based on honesty and integrity, which are the keys to:

long-term business sustainability

lucrative returns on marketing investments

and just plain loving the bajeezuz out of your career

Marketing your content online in a well-planned, well-executed marketing campaign attracts new search engine traffic (and therefore new people) to your services like a magnet. Once that audience is exposed to your content online and hears about how beneficial your products and/or services are give a little further encouragement and they’ll come running.

Comments (8)

Thank you for the thorough list of suggestions! I hadn’t heard of the online forums, I’ll be sure to give them a look-see. I also appreciate your approach to content marketing as a separate campaign. It’s often difficult to keep up with consistent, valuable content but when you look at it from a strategy perspective it can help you set and reach achievable goals. Any suggestions on your preferred organizational methods?Meagan Dahl recently posted..Is It Worth Going To SES San Francisco? A First Timer’s View Of An SEO Conference

Thanks for commenting Meagan. Honestly, the only reason I get out of bed every morning is because some alarm or noise tells me to. Everything is saved in a web-based calendar – projects I’m working on and all their individual tasks, meetings I book a day or a week or ten years in advance, and due dates for blog posts on Function.

So, automation. And I’m not the most web-savvy guy out there, I’ve just found web-hosted apps that work great for me.
PS I save all my ideas too. The last 3 or 4 series I’ve published here all started out as point form ideas in Evernote on the bus or the train.

I always enjoy seeing your content on BizSugar. I wish more bloggers understood the importance of a strong content marketing plan. Even if you don’t do seo, like myself, it’s still very important that you take time to research the topics that are ‘hot’ and of interest in your niche.

I construct my content marketing plan by keeping up with hot topics in related forums, subscribing to influencers blogs, as well as any IM news watch sites. Currently on Sunday of every week I write out the days of the weeks I’m going to publish content, when I’m going to promote it, and how I’ll promote it.

At the end the month I’ll be transitioning over to writing out a content calendar for the entire month ahead so I know exactly what my month’s content is going to be, even down to the emails and promos I’ll be sending my list and the days I’ll send them.

I really enjoy reading your blog Kelvin, you share loads of valuable content and tips and have you a great personality and writing style.